The manufacture of aircraft and other vehicles often requires the assembly of numerous components using fasteners. It is important that the fasteners installed have the right grip length in order to ensure that the component tightens down properly. If a component does not tighten down properly, gaps or areas of force concentration may arise that can cause fracturing. This can be problematic, especially when the assembly of aircraft or other vehicles is required to meet tight tolerances. Existing approaches suffer from certain deficiencies. For example, existing approaches to measuring grip length are manual and of questionable accuracy.